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Google sued for alleged patent infringement

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LOS ANGELES, Calif.–A Pasadena company has sued Google, alleging the Internet tech giant’s Street View system violates its patent.

Vederi, LLC filed the patent infringement complaint against Google in Los Angeles federal court.

According to the lawsuit, Vederi co-founders Enrico Di Bernardo and Luis Goncalves own the patent to technology used on Google Street View that allows users to visually navigate streets within a geographic area.

Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets worldwide. It was launched in 2007, according to Wikipedia.

Vederi’s first provisional patent application for its system was filed in 2000, the company said.

Di Bernardo and Goncalves met at Caltech in Pasadena while pursuing doctoral degrees, and conceived of the idea to build a system to let Internet users look at street-level views of neighborhoods in 2000, their suit states.

Named StreetBrowser, the Vederi system appeared on the City of Pasadena website for several years in the early 2000s, according to the lawsuit.

“We are confident that Vederi has strong patent rights that are directly infringed by Street View,” said Vederi attorney David Dillard. “It’s stunning how closely Google’s Street View tracks the Vederi patented technology, down to the integration of advertising directly within the Street View product through branded icons.”

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